Story+1984-08-08+East+Rutherford,+NJ

“This is a song about how…it seems the more you read the newspapers today, the more you see…people who feel isolated from their friends and isolated from their families, their community and the government…till they end up with that sense of powerlessness that you feel sometimes and they explode…”
 * 08.08.84 East Rutherford, NJ, intro to “Nebraska”**

“Alright, let’s get out of here…”
 * 08.08.84 East Rutherford, NJ, intro to “Darlington County” (following “Nebraska”)**

“How are you guys doing back there? (crowd cheers) you’re riding in the backseat tonight (crowd cheers) check out my rearview mirror…now all I wanna know…what I wanna know…is how many people out there old as me tonight? (crowd cheers)(?) how many people out there old as the Big Man tonight? (crowd cheers) but the Big Man, he still keeps his form (chuckles) (crowd cheers) he’s so handsome…yes it is…here’s a song about all those people that come up to you after you’ve got out of high school and tell you about what a great time you had in high school…now, me personally, I had a horrible time in high school (crowd cheers) the thought of high school disgusts me personally (crowd cheers) every time fall comes around I’m still glad I don’t have to go back to high school (crowd cheers) I like to drive by high school and tease all them suckers that gotta go inside (crowd cheers) I’m a sick man… anyway…it ain’t nothing but glory days (crowd cheers) who’s still in high school out there? (some cheers) alright, this is for you (chuckles)…”
 * 08.08.84 East Rutherford, NJ, intro to “Glory Days”**

“My guitar is broken (chuckles) but I got another one (chuckles) (crowd cheers)(?)…on, uh…in my house my father was the kind of guy…he never, he never liked to go out, never went out to dinner or nothing, never went out to the movies…the only thing he used to love to do was on Sunday he used to love to take us all out in the car for a Sunday drive (some cheers) that was nice, except nobody wanted to go (chuckles)…but he kind of used to insist, I can remember my mother she’d wake us up to go to church and she had this technique where she’d give you ten minutes, then five minutes and then she’d be standing over you with a cold glass of water (crowd cheers) “You gonna get up?”…”Are you gonna get up now?”…”No, just five more minutes, Ma, just five more” “Got the water”…anyway, I’d go downstairs, you know, I was altar boy (chuckles)(crowd cheers) yeah (chuckles)(crowd cheers) only for about two, only for about two Masses (chuckles) I couldn’t learn all that Latin, you know, I used to go, I used to kneel and I used to like, the kid next to me used to know a bit (mumbles)(laughs from the crowd) you can’t tell with Latin, it sounds, you do that, that sounds like that’s what you’re saying so…I did couple of services, I remember my dad, my dad, I’d never see him in church, I used to say “Mom, you know, what about Dad?” “He went to the early Mass” (laughs from the crowd) my father went to the early Mass his entire life…so…anyway…he used to take us out on those drives…and he’d take us to the drive-in – there was only two kinds of movies: you could keep your head above the backseat or you had to lay down on the backseat (chuckles)(crowd cheers) but uh, he always bought these old cars, hundred dollars a piece he used to pay for them, I can remember at the end of the night we’d always be pushing the thing backwards out of the spot because it’d never go in reverse…well, time to get a new one, I’ll be right back…(crowd cheers)(strums the guitar he’d gone to get) this is my old faithful, this always works (crowd cheers)…”
 * 08.08.84 East Rutherford, NJ, intro to “Used Cars”**

“No matter…you’re the guy who yells (?)(chuckles) everybody was (?) the last three years (chuckles)…(?)…seems like no matter where you go or what you do, where you come from always stays with you (crowd cheers)…”
 * 08.08.84 East Rutherford, NJ, intro to “My Hometown”**

“[After the sing-along] You got it (crowd cheers)…”
 * 08.08.84 East Rutherford, NJ, intro to “Thunder Road”**

“Thanks (crowd cheers) we’re gonna, we’re gonna take a short break and then we’re gonna be back to hurt you (crowd cheers)…”
 * 08.08.84 East Rutherford, NJ, after “Thunder Road”**

“Sometimes I feel…so lonely…and so downhearted…oh, oh, oh… hey, baby (crowd cheers)…”
 * 08.08.84 East Rutherford, NJ, middle of “Dancing in the Dark”**

“Thanks…this is a song about…trying to hold on to something as time goes by…I was…I always consider myself real fortunate ‘cause when I was, when I was real young I dreamed of doing something and my dream came true (crowd cheers) so…this is, uh…this is for Little Steven wherever he may be tonight (crowd cheers) he’s, uh… he put out a great album called “Voice of America” (crowd cheers) it’s really a great record…and his mama’s here tonight so (chuckles) this is for her (crowd cheers) and him…”
 * 08.08.84 East Rutherford, NJ, intro to “No Surrender”**

“It was a night just like tonight (crowd cheers) it was hot outside, middle…middle of the summertime…I’d just met Clarence (crowd cheers) it was a long, long time ago…Clarence was working in the pizza parlor, I was working in the Howard Johnson’s…we didn’t know what to do with ourselves…we had no guidance, we didn’t know where our lives were going, we had nothing going for ourselves, we had bad jobs…we needed some hope, we needed some faith, we needed some love, we needed a couple of girls (crowd cheers) so Clarence said he knew these two young ladies that lived not too far outside of town…so we got in his beat-up old Oldsmobile and we drove south…way down Route 9 (crowd cheers) down into the pines (crowd cheers) we drove and drove…until we drove no more…for we had a flat…now…clouds covered the moon, it was a dark night…we couldn’t decide whether to roll up the windows and lock the doors or for one of us to go out and see if we had a spare…so we decided…we’d do it the democratic way: we’d shoot for it…I won (crowd cheers) then I went out to see if we had a spare (Clarence chuckles)…there was nothing in the trunk…so Clarence said that he knew of a gas-station just on the other side of these woods…(crowd cheers) it was dark…it was spooky…there were sounds coming from everywhere (crowd cheers) as we went deeper and deeper into the forest…you don’t believe in no ghosts, do you? I don’t believe in no ghosts, don’t believe, there’s no like… there’s no like (?) it’s not dangerous in these woods, no…so the trees were so tall we could hardly see anything (crowd cheers) there’s no, there are no wild animals or nothing? you sure? there ain’t no killer chipmunks or nothing?...Big Man, I think I hear something…I think, I think there’s something (?)…we went a little further (crowd cheers) and then…then we went a little further… WOOOAAH!...Big Man…hey, Clarence! (laughs from the crowd) oh, Clarence!...Clarence!...where are you?...wooah! don’t do that, don’t do that, oh Jesus…we ain’t ever gonna get out of here, jeez…and then we seen something come shooting down from the sky…and over in the clearing we saw the answer to our quest (Bruce and Clarence see a guitar and a saxophone)(crowd cheers)(laughs from the crowd)(crowd cheers) and we stood there in the moonlight…and when we touched… (…) And here we are tonight (crowd cheers)…”
 * 08.08.84 East Rutherford, NJ, middle of “Growin’ Up”**

“To the end…we said “To the end”…and I promised that if I got out first, I’d help you…you said if you got out, you’d help me…and we swore…that night we swore on it…you said it wasn’t nothing but a promise…you said it was nothing, just a promise…just a promise…”
 * 08.08.84 East Rutherford, NJ, middle of “Backstreets”**

“Ladies and gentlemen…it’s now my pleasure…my privilege…my honor…my responsibility…to introduce to you the members of the E Street Band (crowd cheers) beginning with our newest member…a fellow we met in the woods down in south Jersey: Jim the Dancing Bear (crowd cheers) he’s completely docile, ladies and gentlemen, have no fear…then I’d like to take you to the far left of the stage where I’d like to introduce to you – no offence, guys – the most intelligent member of the E Street Band, a man who gave up a scholarship at Harvard in unusual sexual practises to join us on this 1984 tour…that’s his dedication…a man who wrote such books as his study of the lost tribes of Hoboken, you’ve heard about him before, you’ve never seen him on TV, you’ve never read about him in the newspapers but let me introduce you to him now, the only man with a high school diploma…Professor Roy Bittan (crowd cheers) he’s so smart…and on the vocals, an alumni of Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, from Long Branch, New Jersey: Miss Patti Scialfa (crowd cheers) and then the man bringing you the thunder from down under, his mother was a Tallent, his father was a Tallent, Mr. Garry W. Tallent on the bass guitar (crowd cheers) on the drums, author of that soon-to-be-best-selling novel that you can buy at the mall anyplace, “The Big Beat,” let’s hear it for the Mighty One, Mighty Max Weinberg on the drums (crowd cheers) and next, on the organ, the inimitable, the immovable, the irretrievable, the irreprovable, the unforgivable, the unimaginable, the amazing (?) the original sinner: Phantom Dan Federici (crowd cheers) look out, girls, he hates to be alone…and now…a man as sweet as life itself – drum roll, please – on the guitar, Mr. Nils Lofgren (Nils does his trampoline stunt)(crowd cheers) that’s incredible…and now…last but not least…a man I have run out of words to describe…you all know he’s the king of the world, you know he’s the emperor of the universe…well, this week we’re putting his name in nomination to be the next president of the United States (crowd cheers) I think it’s time we had a Big Man in the White House – ladies and gentlemen, give me a C-L-A-R-E-N-C-E, what’s that spell? (crowd: “Clarence”) what’s that spell? (crowd: “Clarence”) what’s that spell? (crowd: “Clarence”) the Big Man, Clarence Clemons (crowd cheers)(the band plays a snippet of a tune I don’t recognise)…alright…now, wait a minute…give me that (Max hits the drum) we’ll get this right in a minute – one, two, three…”
 * 08.08.84 East Rutherford, NJ, middle of “Rosalita”**

“When I was a kid…I heard Elvis Presley’s music coming over the radio (crowd cheers) I guess in the end the simple thing that it said to me was “Let freedom ring (crowd cheers) for everybody everywhere”…but remember, we gotta, gotta fight for it every day somehow somewhere…”
 * 08.08.84 East Rutherford, NJ, intro to “Born to Run”**

“Take it easy now, band…we’re gonna do some slow twisting… alright…now I can see who’s out there (crowd cheers) see you guys way up on the hill back there (crowd cheers) hello, how’s the weather up there?...ooh yeah…how you doing in the back? (crowd cheers) they put the crazy ones in the backseat (crowd cheers)… now I just got one question…there’s only one thing I want to know… Big Man…when I was but a child (Clarence: “Uh huh”) I’d go to a dance, I’d stand back against the wall (Clarence: “Oh”) and my baby told me to get lost because I could not dance…so I just got one question (Clarence: “What’s that?”) what I wanna know is (Clarence: “What you wanna know?”) what I wanna know, what I gotta know before we leave tonight is, is (Clarence: “What?) is…Do you love me? (crowd cheers)…” (…) Alright, thank you (crowd cheers) thank you (crowd cheers) we gotta go now…you guys gotta get up early to go to work…you see, we get to sleep late but you must have to go to work tomorrow now (crowd cheers) no? (crowd cheers) no? (crowd cheers) to hell with the work (crowd cheers) you mean, you mean keep on rocking? (crowd cheers) one time for you…Shake it a-baby…”
 * 08.08.84 East Rutherford, NJ, middle of “Twist and Shout”**

“Thank you (crowd cheers) that’s my people (crowd cheers)…”
 * 08.08.84 East Rutherford, NJ, after “Twist and Shout”**

//Compiled by Johanna Pirttijärvi//